What Do You Want More??

[chimpymcflightsuit 0]

Oh, and one more thing fellas...

 

 

Aside from making it compatible with TrackIR:

 

Please, for the love of common sense, make the padlock system work. It's really very simple, yet hardly ever gets done right.

 

Here's how it works:

 

If he's in my **field of view**, as in where I'm looking at the present time, and he's visible on the screen and I press the padlock button, REGARDLESS OF A LOCK OR NOT WITH THE RADAR, I padlock him. If there's another ENEMY TARGET, read that again, **ENEMY TARGET**, in the air, then if I press padlock again it immediately slews to that target instead. If I press it yet again, it goes back to the original target.

 

With me so far? Good.

 

Now if I press the UNPADLOCK button, it goes right back to whatever view I was using before I entered padlock mode. That's it, that's all. It's not hard.

 

The user SHOULD NOT have a hard time padlocking the target if he gets behind him. All he should have to do is use the "look behind" button and press padlock again. If you want, include reasonable accomodations for losing padlock if the target say, flies underneath and behind the pilot's plane. That's fine.

 

But it SHOULD NOT be required to have a lock with radar or any other kind of asinine rule. I'm using my damn eyesballs here. Why this is so hard for idiotic developers to understand absolutely mystifies me. If I see him in any field of view and I press padlock, it locks the view. It should padlock cycle depending on the range to target. Closest gets padlocked first and so on...

 

And for pete's sake fellas, if I padlock someone and press a *view* button like look backward (NOT THE UNPADLOCK BUTTON), don't make the game lose the padlock. When I want to simply look foward at my HUD or straight behind or whatever for two seconds and then have to move the view all over again and repadlock, it kind of defeats the whole point in the first place. Make it easy to check the instruments and look back at the padlock, OK?

 

And yeah, if you want, make a padlock button for locked/tracked radar contacts. But please, keep it seperate from a normal, common sense view padlock.

 

Thanks a bunch.

Edited April 20, 2005 by chimpymcflightsuit

[+Dante-JT 6]

Don't hand out a release date before you know when this will be

 

 

I agree completely, that's why we don't have a release date posted on our website now. A funny thing, is that I work (as daily job) in a rather big games dev studio, they're doing a massive online sci-fi game (I just do the art there), they had a extremely tight schedule (1 year and thereabouts to release the game, nutts), it failed to meet the announced release date of March 31, the result is a complete riot in the related forums, with people wanting to boycot the game and there's even some death threats. I'm glad they postponed its release, it is still far from product release state.

 

Please, take a page from the Eagle Dynamic's Bible of How to F*** Up a Sim. DO NOT make the damn specs of the game absurd. People who *really* play simulators don't give a damn about shadows and pixel lighting and all of that crap. They play it for the incredibly dynamic experience that is air combat and they play it to win.

 

At the moment we don't have any fancy things in JT, related to per pixel lighting and all that, it's plain IL2 1 level of technology and so its lite for todays hardware standards - of course I want to have some pretty eyecandy for the final product, such as self-shadowing, heat blur effect and so on, but first we will have a game, eyecandy comes later - and it only stays if the game still plays good with all that turned on.

 

You know what made Novalogic's sims so successful (even though they moved on to more profitable FPS shooters)? They concentrated on making the game friendly instead of the latest this-and-that nonsense. You could play that game all day on 56k and not have a hiccup. You could run it off of your crappy built-in graphics card and be able to play it just fine.

 

Indeed, regardless of the lack of accuracy (and they claimed it as accurate and approved by real pilots and all that nonsense, its what pisses most people) the Novalogic sims were successful, I remember the days of that F-16 vs MiG29 game (around 1998?)and there were hundreds of online players in one server ('Novaworld' thing if I remember well?), simulation apart, it was cool in terms of stability and network performance (I'm sure most people in 1998 were in a 56k modem, and even so it played very well online). For occasional fun we're playing in Thunder-works now a very little (5 MB !!!) free flight sim done by a japanese guy alone, the graphics are completely crude (think Amiga-like flat untextured polygon filled graphics!) the simulation is also very novalogic-ish very simple (!) with 12G turns and magic 360-degree radar and the like, but even so it's enjoyable because it has very good network performance, a huge number of things to do, planes to fly, scenarios do try and, as Steve said, it's too simple to be unstable at all :)

 

Here's the deal: make the multiplayer a fun, easy-on-the-eyes and easy-on-the-brain place to get together. Don't make it a project to find out how to connect, IM people, or hold a private conference. Have the basic information of the games being played displayed for all to see before they join. Don't make me guess whether or not people are flying biplanes or migs, and make the server rules able to be enforced from BY THE SERVER.

 

I agree, of course this is all a lot of interface work to be done, and if there's a part of JT were we are way behind, is in interface work - we have pratically nothing so far but we will make it accessible - btw, I don't think of HL's interface to be such as nightmarish as you say :)

 

DYNAMIC MISSION EDITOR:

Believe it or not, we don't enjoy finding creative ways to hide targets inside building textures so the players can't go off and destroy the targets before the story behind the mission we planned over the course of three hours even has the chance to occur. I think that about says it all.

 

seems again you're doing references to some sim out there in which you become frustrated at some point :)

 

SOUND:

Sound is huge. If I don't feel like I'm standing there with my camera waiting to take a pic of a Harrier about to blast past me and enjoy the whoosh and thunder of the engines during a replay, the experience doesn't excite me. One of the few things LOMAC got right.

 

We have to make it up to the name of our sim - 'Jet Thunder' means also the jet roar or the extreme thundering noise of a jet passing by at full throttle, so don't worry, we will cover that as it deserves :)

 

And for pete's sake fellas, if I padlock someone and press a *view* button like look backward (NOT THE UNPADLOCK BUTTON), don't make the game lose the padlock. When I want to simply look foward at my HUD or straight behind or whatever for two seconds and then have to move the view all over again and repadlock, it kind of defeats the whole point in the first place. Make it easy to check the instruments and look back at the padlock, OK?

 

Excellent post about padlock, we will follow your suggestions as they make a lot of sense. This is an area were JT is very weak at the moment, in overal views feature (just a mouse-look, external view, cockpit, fly-by, nothing more) so maybe we should outsource this serious issue because Steve seems too busy with other parts of the code (like campaign server/networking, they have the priority now).

 

But all in all, excellent posts chimpymcflightsuit ! We appreciate this detailed feedback from the flightsim community.

[Wilko 0]

Looking foward to this alot... chimpy nailed it nicely

[EAGLE 18 FLT 0]

I voted for Multiplayer, mostly because without it, I personally believe that it will be become boring,fast I do not like being unable to fly with other human beings, it just gives me a thrill and more excitement to shoot a real person down not my computer .

 

However the multiplayer aspect is not the only thing that contributes to a long lasting game (obvously), Good graphics and realism makes me think "wow, so this is how it really is", I love realism. I always fly 100% realism however I do see the point that others have made about that it should be fun and I can relate to that, people aren't going to play a game that isn't fun!

 

Another thing that will prolong the life of JT is expansions, take CFS1 for example some members of my squad still to this day play on CFS1, and you know why? because we can mod planes, turn them into Jets and so on, we could almost continuously expand the game, and I believe that my squad will continue to keep playing CFS1 for this reason.

 

Great Job :yes: , and Good Luck Lads!

[Nesher_ECV56 0]

Realism and multi-player support are on the top of the list.

 

Regards

[FarmBoy 0]

Well I want some FUN which for me basically means a good flight model combined with intersting terrain to interact with.

[fallenpheonix 0]

Looks pretty good so far, and will be making it onto my comp when its released.

The only thing I really want to see is realistic carrier ops, what I've been looking for for years is the ability to fly conventional jets from a ship fly the missiona and get back to the ship. CFS 2 gave everything bar the jets and Lomac didn't have an Su-33 camaign... though I've tried soe 3rd party ones whch were pretty good.

Also the level of avionics of this era seems more manageable, games like CFS2 were non existant in ths department and games like Lo-mac require a Phd

[EAGLE 18 FLT 0]

The only thing I really want to see is realistic carrier ops, what I've been looking for for years is the ability to fly conventional jets from a ship fly the missiona and get back to the ship. CFS 2 gave everything bar the jets and Lomac didn't have an Su-33 camaign...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah I totally agree. I first came to Flight Sims back in the days of CFS1 with the 3rd party help of some people the Ark Royal came to be made and other carriers, I bought CFS 2 and was impressed with the detail that had been put into the carrier ops.

 

Then I moved onto the IL2 and Lock On games, IL2/PF made me realise how much I love doing carrier ops, again after a while of playing FPS for a while. However I wanted to fly some of the new age aircraft/jets and land them, this is what I most disappointed about with LOMAC apart from the obvious bugs/lag/poor performance on most machines.

 

So yeah basically I'd love to see some good detail on the carriers, realistic flying models when it comes to STOVL and All together some good fun and challenging Carrier Ops.

[scary_pigeon 0]

my favourate flightsim remains IL2. its graphics and flight model I found amazing when it was first released.

 

it is my main inspiration.

[Bard 0]

my favourate flightsim remains IL2. its graphics and flight model I found amazing when it was first released.

 

it is my main inspiration.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

good stuff :)

 

i sure hope you can do a better interface though :)

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

I voted Other -- Air warfare battlefield environment.

 

Training is something to think about. The successful sim of the future will include basic and intermediate Flyable trainers of historical relevancy, and offer immersive training missions with these trainers up front on the game menu. I am not thinking of the crusty combat flight sim Old Timers, but the tender flight sim Newbie -- stepping into combat flight sims for his/her first time.

 

Dante::

first we will have a game, eyecandy comes later

If so, please know or remember that clouds are "game" and not just eye candy, something Shockwave was the first to figure out very recently (BoB-2).

 

I think...not sure...that Shockwave will soon have the first combat flight sim with large cumulus clouds and AI that can't see through these clouds. My theory is that small white flak puff "flight sim" clouds are an industry standard because nobody takes the time to program AI not seeing through clouds -- just offer small flak puff clouds and any AI/Cloud complaints will be minimized. The industry standard flight sim clouds are indeed just eye candy that has no effect on anything except the player his/her self.

 

The bizzare thing is that Online human vs human play with no AI offers the ideal potential to create very large clouds and weather patterns -- a true air warfare simulation environment -- without having to program AI for clouds and weather, but for some reason this has never happened. I assume this is because of the recent focus on the quick Online Dogfight and Online kill scores since the 1990s.

 

 

Multiplayer:: Please, if we must support Online Dogfight, do NOT let this cripple Offline play ability to configure the sim. For example, Offline players may wish to change the sky colour and sky effects -- some may think the Devs got the colour not right (say, for winter or summer skies) -- but the ability to change sky colour could be used to give competitive Online advantage in visual spotting. Thus sky colour must be a server option -- another complication Devs may wish to avoid by hardcoding and thus denying any configuration ability to Offline players.

 

 

sim looks great !!!

 

Thanks~ I can't wait to see the southern stars of JT.....mmm........ ;)

 

Will Jet Thunder have real stars? Be advised that if this sim takes off unexpectedly like FB, the JT starry sky may need to handle northern hemisphere ops.

Edited August 7, 2005 by Lexx_Luthor

[Dude27 0]

Reading this thread, I noticed that the team often played the YSflight free sim, and I just wanted to tell you that a big community is around this free game and that one guy did an AWESOME one-in-all mod pack with very updated graphism and litteraly hundred of updated planes :

 

"REALISM" YSFlight page

 

if you like the basic game, you will be found of this pack (easy to install pack+game) !!!

 

 

anyway, I wish you the best , There are millions of MirageIII and HArriers drivers who wait patiently to play your game ! good job ! :yes:

[+Dante-JT 6]

if you like the basic game, you will be found of this pack (easy to install pack+game)

 

 

I loved this !!!! :) The planes feel "heavier"...sort of...specially the Kfir mission... How real is the FM supposed to be? I will try to do some online matches against Steve :) I keep remembering him how stable and fast is ysflight's multiplayer code!

[Aeroworld 0]

Realism! A simulation has to be as realistic as possible.

[photis 0]

Hi there to you all, I'm new here, and this is my first post.

 

I couldn't agree more with the latter post. Realism is what a simulator should go after, otherwise it's not a simulator, but a game.

 

In flight simulators, I believe that the most realistic feature a developer has to go after, is the actual "feeling of flight". What do I mean by that? If you are flying with a jet, speed is a must. It should never look like you're riding a flying bicycle, especially at low level flying. I have done some actual low level flying myself and I have never seen a flight sim featuring the actual feeling one gets when flying at a low altitude. And since most of the Argentinian missions at Falklands were low level naval strikes, I believe that you should really look after low level flying feeling in your project.

 

A second feature I would really like to see in your project, is the weather effects of the cold South Atlantic combined with Carrier Ops. This could include extra turbulence during take off and landing, a more difficult flying physics model, low visibility during rain and thunderstorms and night flights etc.

 

Another thing that was mentioned before, is training. Training -especially at an advanced level- should work as a part of the campaign. Especially for models such as the Harrier (knowledge of the V-TOL feature is not to be taken for granted), as well as the Super Etendard (complicated weapon systems + low level approaching to its target). Advanced training could work as a number of early missions in a campaign.

 

An option for failures and malfunctions of various sytems on a plane, would add much to the simulator's realism. Let's not forget that the brits lost more harrier due to accidents, than in actual combat time. And a failure option is something not oftenly featured in flight sims.

 

I hope I didn't tire you too much with all this. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to flying your sim!

cheers

[A4-AR 0]

Don´t forget about the salt in the windscreens of the A-4 and Pucara cockpits during low level flights! It only appeared in the forward windscreen.

 

This is looking good, and I can wait all my life if it takes so to have this sim working perfectly

 

[Pilotasso 0]

Voted Realism, but that was because I couldnt vode twice. I think you cant beat the Realism/multiplayer COMBO. If multiplayer is introduced IMHO I wont miss certain single player Modes as much.

Edited November 28, 2005 by Pilotasso

[Ubbrutt 0]

Hello to all.

 

I voted for "expandibility" for the same Seawolf and McHighlander's reasons - more or less - also because I assume this sim will be realistic, also to compete fairly with all the others around.

The graphics seem already very good to me, and multiplayer options might be useful and a major amusement feature, but still can't believe to it as a mean characteristic - better, to me, if this sim could expand itself to other sceneries or war theaters, imaginary or historical would be fine the same.

This is the fun of the game ... Fighters Anthology abd USAF (to quote the very first I can recall to my mind) have teached it to us, I think.

 

This is my first post, nice to be here!

[Dude27 0]

you already have strike fighter for the kind of game you look for (with the services pack already available and the future ones)

 

I'm for total immersion... which means: high visual graphic details (air-sea-land, cockpit shaking, gforces simulated, speed feeling), acurate definition of this particular conflict (good ATC, weather of the region, plane physics, dynamic campaign), a dynamic world (life on carrier, airport, town, ...). yes, my favorite game is Red baron 3D :D if you go for a Red Baron-like sim with thunderjet, i will be in HEAVEN !!!

 

on the contrary of the last message, I am for the specialized conflict where all is accurately rendered and immersive, if you go too open, you loose the momentum of the simulation. I always love the idea of a sim about this falklands conflict and i'm dying to see what can be done in these days (and the work already done goes in right sense and it's just terrific IMHO).

 

to Scary Pigeon and Dante : don't forget a replay feature, people like to see their flight back from other point of views. Did you ever play console game like ace combat or aerodancing/aeroelite ? the replays are in my opinion so much well done with dynamic cameras (shaking and bouncing) and lifelike lighting which give the impression to see the real planes in motion... i never felt that in a replay from a PC game...

Edited December 31, 2005 by Dude27

[+Dante-JT 6]

you already have strike fighter for the kind of game you look for (with the services pack already available and the future ones)

 

I'm for total immersion... which means: high visual graphic details (air-sea-land, cockpit shaking, gforces simulated, speed feeling), acurate definition of this particular conflict (good ATC, weather of the region, plane physics, dynamic campaign), a dynamic world (life on carrier, airport, town, ...). yes, my favorite game is Red baron 3D :D if you go for a Red Baron-like sim with thunderjet, i will be in HEAVEN !!!

 

on the contrary of the last message, I am for the specialized conflict where all is accurately rendered and immersive, if you go too open, you loose the momentum of the simulation. I always love the idea of a sim about this falklands conflict and i'm dying to see what can be done in these days (and the work already done goes in right sense and it's just terrific IMHO).

 

I agree completely. If a sim goes too open, it ends up being rather vague, as you said, lacking a more defined ´goal´ - feels like you ended with an incomplete product in hands that you need to fill the blanks - that´s ok for some people, but the majority of people wants a complete product for what they paid.

 

Red Baron 3D was good. Most 90´s sims were good due to the great immersion they created, with the right mood according to the conflict they simulated. Mig Alley was great too (I hope they do a remake, same work like they did with BoB2: Wings Of Victory).

 

to Scary Pigeon and Dante : don't forget a replay feature, people like to see their flight back from other point of views. Did you ever play console game like ace combat or aerodancing/aeroelite ? the replays are in my opinion so much well done with dynamic cameras (shaking and bouncing) and lifelike lighting which give the impression to see the real planes in motion... i never felt that in a replay from a PC game...

 

scary_pigeon last week did some impressive camera experiments (he was impressed too by the replays in Ace Combat 5) so, expect some rather dramatic and dynamic replays in JT. ;)

[AWL_Spinner 0]

My main ask in terms of realism, in addition to the South Atlantic weather, is the (reasonably unique to this topic) need to have accurately modelled ship behaviour, weapons systems, and reasonably detailed naval planning in any mission builder you might be designing. It's absolutely key to a realistic recreation of the theatre.

 

The new screenies you've posted are wonderful but if you try those sort of high altitude antics in the simulator at time of release I'd expect a Sea Dart up the jetpipe in short order :)

 

I've no reason to doubt though, everything we've seen so far has looked excellent. Look forward to the demo!

 

:)

[Honcho_FlyingFinn 0]

I hope there is a certain "less is more" approach in Jet Thunder. In F4AF campaign, the problem is that you get jumped by hordes of enemy fighters in every mission. When you get 3-4 kills every mission, it actually feels like nothing. If the amount of planes per side is historically accurate in Jet Thunder, it might be great. Less can be more in a flight sim if done properly. MiG Alley is a great example of this.

[+Dante-JT 6]

I hope there is a certain "less is more" approach in Jet Thunder. In F4AF campaign, the problem is that you get jumped by hordes of enemy fighters in every mission. When you get 3-4 kills every mission, it actually feels like nothing. If the amount of planes per side is historically accurate in Jet Thunder, it might be great. Less can be more in a flight sim if done properly. MiG Alley is a great example of this.

 

 

Surely you won't be getting hordes of Sea Harriers attacking your Daggers flight. Hostorically, you'll be getting one CAP (2 Sea Harriers) from Invincible and if you're really unlucky, also 2 planes from Hermes.

 

If you fly as british pilot, you may get jumped by the escort of an argentine attack group, argentine attack groups were flights of 2 to 4 planes (Skyhawks or Daggers) and the escort flight was usually a flight of 2 Mirage IIIEA.

[Hawg11 0]

Hi! I think realism, of course, is tops. Also, graphics are very important. They contribute to a sense of speed, immersion, etc.,

 

Please make the graphics scalable, like lockon. Through sliders in the UI, they enabled the user to turn off/lower the shader effects, land and object resolution, civilian vehicles, etc.,

 

Also, please make the game user moddable as possible (making sure to hinder cheating online).

[Aerovoid 0]

I just found out about this game today. It looks very impressive and I look forward to the demo. It was hard to choose from the list of options. I ended up voting for "Fun in the game", because when it comes down to it. That's what we all want. Fun. One could make the most realistic sim ever and it might not turn out to be fun at all.

 

I also think graphics are important, not just for the eye candy, but it can also add to the realism and gameplay as well. Having real looking clouds, glare from the sun, reflections of the glass inside the cockpit, things like that. The graphics in this game already look pretty good though and i'm sure it will push my crappy computer to it's limits as is. But I just wanted to say that graphics can add more then just pretty eye candy.

 

Expansion packs are defiantely important. I always like having big list of planes to choose from. The abillity to add user made planes would be a plus too. (I really want to fly that Vulcan!)

 

Anyway, i'll be keeping my eye on this game. Looks really good so far. :)